Etched in Bone

by Anne Bishop

  “You think it’s safe for the children to go to the schoolroom?” Pete asked.

  “I think, today, it’s the safest place for them to be,” Monty replied.

  He pulled out his mobile phone and called the Chestnut Street station, requesting a car and driver to pick him up. He also talked to Captain Burke, reporting what he knew.

  They lingered on the sidewalk, drinking coffee and talking quietly so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “If a patrol car keeps checking the cairn, the Hawks or Crows will notice and report it,” Kowalski said. “Maybe Captain Burke can talk to the captain of the mounted patrol and have them check the cairn. They patrol Lakeside Park, so it wouldn’t look strange for an officer to ride past the spot.”

  Pete looked at the three officers. “There’s a mounted patrol? Men on horses?”

  “There was a mounted patrol in Toland,” Monty said. “Officers walking a beat too.”

  “Here the officers on horseback mainly patrol around the park and the university, and the beat cops are mostly in the downtown area,” Kowalski said.

  “With the emphasis on conserving fuel, the mayor and police commissioner may want to expand those ways of policing.” Monty thought of Jana Paniccia, the young woman who went to Bennett to become a deputy because she couldn’t get a job as a police officer in a human-controlled town. She was now patrolling with a horse and a six-gun. He wondered how she was getting along with the sheriff, who was a Wolf.

  Officer Daniel Hilborn pulled into one of the on-street parking spaces near the double.

  “That’s my ride,” Monty said. “I’ll check the cairn. If I don’t find anything, I’ll talk to Captain Burke about getting assistance to monitor the site.” He got into the patrol car and instructed Hilborn to drive to the cairn. It was a place in Lakeside Park, across from the Courtyard, where identification and other personal items were left when humans entered the Courtyard uninvited. When that happened, there wouldn’t be a body to find, so the ID left at the cairn was the only means the police had to fill out a DLU form that a family needed in order to get a death certificate.

  But there was nothing at the spot where hunters had stood the night they killed Daphne Wolfgard and tried to shoot Sam. Nothing tucked among the stones. No wallet, no keys, no ration card or driver’s license. Nothing.

  Returning to the patrol car, Monty called Kowalski.

  “I called in the license plate,” Kowalski said after telling Monty about the van parked in the Stag and Hare’s lot. “We checked the glove box. No insurance card or registration. But the passenger side door was unlocked.”

  “If the owner doesn’t show up in a few minutes, have the vehicle towed to the station.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Monty ended the call. After a minute, he realized Officer Hilborn was watching him.

  “Where to, sir?” Hilborn asked.

  If you leave a vehicle, why not lock all the doors? And why would the driver exit from the passenger side? But there were ways into a vehicle that would leave no trace—a window open a crack to let in fresh air, the air vents, probably other ways he couldn’t name. Any opening that smoke could flow through would provide access. Easy enough then to remove any material that had a person’s name or address. Easy enough to unlock the passenger door and leave with the material.

  It also would have been easy enough to relock the passenger door. Oversight or deliberate?

  “Back to the station,” Monty said. “But I’d like you to remain available as a driver today.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The humans connected to the Courtyard needed to maintain the illusion of business as usual—right up until the moment that it wasn’t.

  • • •

  Meg closed the Private door almost all the way. The front door was still locked. It wasn’t time to open the office yet, so Nathan wasn’t there to keep an eye on things—including her. Especially her.

  Returning to the sorting room table, she picked up the silver folding razor. One side of the handle had pretty leaves and flowers. The other side was plain and had cs759 engraved on it. It had been her designation; the closest thing she had to a name for twenty-four years.

  No one wanted to tell her what was going on, but the razor would tell her. Except she didn’t feel any prickles that would guide her to the right part of her body to make the cut.

  Frustrated, Meg shoved the razor into her pocket, opened a drawer, and pulled out the box of prophecy cards. She spread all the cards over the table, including the new ones that were actually a children’s game that had simple illustrations. She ran her fingers over all of them, moving back and forth.

  Needed a question.

  One good thing about using the cards was she could ask as many questions as she wanted. If she didn’t get it right the first time, she could try again. But she still needed a starting point and didn’t know how to distill the question.

  Something had happened in the Market Square last night. Was it done, or would something happen because of it?

  Her fingertips tingled, then began to burn as she brushed the cards.

  One, two, three. Subject, action, result.

  She turned the cards faceup. The hooded figure with the scythe. A police car with the lights flashing driving down a city street. A fierce-faced cartoon man gripping the bars of a jail cell.

  Meg picked up the card of the man in jail and frowned. The cartoon face made her think the card was from the children’s game, not from the cityscape deck of fortune-telling cards. She turned the card over to look at the back. She was working with several decks in order to create a new deck of prophecy cards that could be used by cassandra sangue, but she could tell which deck a card came from by the design on the back.

  The card fluttered out of her hand. When she picked it up and turned it over, she realized she’d picked up two cards.

  The new card was a sign that said DANGER!

  “That’s not much help,” she muttered. “What kind of danger? Who is in danger?”

  The tip of her tongue prickled at the same time a harsh buzz filled her fingertips. Then her mind went blank for just a moment. No, not blank. Her mind became . . . veiled.

  Meg blinked. Braced her hands on the table.

  That was odd. There had been no feeling of the euphoria that usually veiled a blood prophet’s mind from the images she saw, but Meg had definitely experienced the protective veil.

  She examined her hands for paper cuts or punctures that might have bled, then pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. No cuts, no feeling of pain.

  But there were three more cards turned faceup on the table.

  The first card was a dappled forest, as if a person was walking between the trees toward a sunlit meadow. The second card was a tombstone. The third card was a mirror.

  She swallowed hard and wished she hadn’t asked any questions.

  Somehow, whatever had happened in the Market Square would lead to a grave in the woods. As for who was in danger . . . Well, who did a person see when she looked in a mirror?

  Meg put the cards back in the wooden box, put the box in the drawer, and slammed the drawer shut. Prophecy wasn’t absolute, even with the razor. And she still didn’t know enough about using the cards to be sure of her interpretation. Besides, if she kept asking questions and turning over cards for answers, how could she know if any of them were the question that needed to be asked?

  And there was that disturbing experience of her mind being veiled without the euphoria that followed being cut.

  Maybe she should check with Theral and find out if Emily Faire, the nurse practitioner, had office hours today. And she should write down the details of this episode for Dr. Lorenzo, since he was working with a task force to check on the well-being of the cassandra sangue. This was exactly the kind of thing he should know about.

&nb
sp; Stress or anxiety could cause the body to react oddly. She’d read an article about that recently. So maybe her mind hadn’t veiled the way it did when she used the razor and that’s why she hadn’t felt the euphoria. Maybe she’d blanked out because of stress or anxiety. Did that happen to people?

  She pulled out the notebook she used to record anything revealed by using the cards, dated a clean page, and wrote:

  hooded figure with scythe + police car + man in jail

  Danger sign

  woods + tombstone + mirror

  How did a sequence of events begin with death and end with her? Assuming her interpretation was remotely accurate.

  “Arroo!”

  Nathan, reporting for work.

  Nothing more she could do right now. Even if her brain was just being wonky and the cards didn’t mean anything, she should show someone. Henry or Vlad or Merri Lee.

  She wanted to show Simon, but what if he wanted an excuse to stay away, to back away from being friends? The Wolves didn’t turn away from pack members who had wonky brains. Skippy was proof of that. But she wasn’t a Wolf, wasn’t really pack.

  If she told Henry or Vlad, they would tell Simon. Merri Lee, then. She would show Merri Lee during their midday break.

  “Arroo!” More insistent. If Nathan had to wait much longer, he’d really start howling.

  Meg put the notebook in the drawer with the other notebooks and hurried to open the office door for the watch Wolf.

  • • •

  Simon flipped the lock on Howling Good Reads’ front door and poked his head out as Kowalski drew abreast of the store for the second time.

  “You looking for something?” he asked.

  Kowalski smiled and shook his head. “I’m doing a foot patrol while Lieutenant Montgomery is taking care of some things at the station.”

  Marie Hawkgard had watched Kowalski watch other police tow away the vehicle that had been left in the Stag and Hare’s parking lot. Crows had watched him check the Courtyard’s customer parking lot and test the wooden door in the wall that divided the customer lot from the employee parking lot. The police officer seemed pleased to find the door locked and had continued walking along the perimeter of the Courtyard’s fence, crossing the street during a break in traffic in order to head back toward Main Street. He looked at all the cars parked on the street, then walked the Denby children, Lizzy, and Ruthie up to the corner when it was time for them to go up to the schoolroom for their morning lessons.

  He wasn’t peeing on tires or giving anything a good sniff, but in his own way, Kowalski was marking territory. To the terra indigene’s way of thinking, there was nothing odd about that—except he’d never done it before, and this morning seemed a strange time to start.

  “Anyone see anything going on at the Stag and Hare after hours?” Kowalski asked.

  “Why?”

  “Abandoned vehicle in the lot. Could have broken down and someone left it there, or it could have been abandoned by someone causing mischief and being scared off. Since Captain Burke bought the business and the building, I took a good look around, checking for broken windows or other signs that someone might have tried to break in. Stolen bottles of liquor are easy to sell out of the back of a van.”

  He hadn’t known that liquor was valued enough to steal. Then again, the closest the terra indigene came to consuming liquor was eating fruit that had started to ferment. Or in the case of the Sanguinati, drinking the blood of someone who had consumed alcohol.

  With Burke being the owner, the Stag and Hare would become part of the police pack’s personal territory. Now it made sense that Kowalski was sniffing around.

  “I’ll let you get back to work,” Kowalski said.

  Simon watched as the police officer walked up to the corner of Main Street. But Kowalski didn’t cross the street to the Stag and Hare. He turned left toward the Courtyard’s Main Street entrance—and the Liaison’s Office.

  • • •

  “Fucking assholes.” Getting voice mail—again—Jimmy ended the call and tried another number. “You think you can cheat me out of my share?”

  No ruckus last night. No cop cars wailing to indicate his crew had been caught liberating meat from that shop. Everything had gone as slick as spit.

  But no one had called to tell him what time to meet them to pick up his share of the meat. And no one was answering his calls.

  Maybe they had lost their nerve and hadn’t done the job at all. Maybe that’s why they didn’t want to talk to him. Easy enough to find out.

  “Where are you going?” Sandee demanded when he headed for the door.

  “Out. I got business.”

  “What kind of business?” She hurried after him, wearing those stupid high-heeled slippers. What kind of woman wore shit like that?

  Before he married her, he used to think stuff like that made her look sexy. But that was when just looking at her body made him hot. And what looked sexy for a couple of hours looked pretty damn stupid when you had to live with it.

  “Jimmy, the kids are hungry, and there’s nothing to eat,” Sandee whined as she grabbed at his arm.

  He shook her off and left, glancing at the apartments as he walked up to Main Street. CJ was already gone. Couldn’t tell about Denby or his bitch wife. One of the cops was on the porch, drinking from one of those mugs everyone was supposed to purchase from the coffee shop instead of paying extra for a disposable cup. Not dressed for work yet.

  Jimmy raised a hand in greeting. The bastard just stared.

  • • •

  “Here.” Merri Lee held out one of the travel mugs from A Little Bite. “Nadine was showing Tess how to make an iced mocha, and I volunteered to take a quick break and bring one over for you to try.”

  “Who’s minding the bookstore?” Meg asked, taking the mug.

  “Vlad is there now.” Merri Lee hesitated. “There’s something odd about them closing the Market Square. Normally Vlad would grumble a bit about me taking a break earlier than usual—although I think he does it because he thinks a human employer would—but when I told him I was popping over to see you, he gave me this strange look, like he was trying to decide if I knew something. Which makes me think there is something to know.”

  “Karl is patrolling on foot,” Meg said. She took a sip of iced mocha. “Oh, this is good.”

  Merri Lee nodded. “Cold and caffeinated. Definitely a winner in this heat.”

  “Karl has never patrolled that way before. And he keeps checking out the Market Square, but human law doesn’t apply in the Courtyard.”

  “Michael is on call. We’re supposed to go about our business like we usually do, but I think Lieutenant Montgomery is waiting for something to happen.”

  Meg set the mug down and pulled out the prophecy card notebook. “Maybe this?”

  Merri Lee studied the page with the newest notes. “What you predicted is disturbing, but I think you’re really tuning into the cards. This looks more like the images you relayed previously to reveal a prophecy.”

  “It does?” Meg looked at her notes in surprise.

  “Sure. You’ve even grouped them. If I was going to do one of our story cards based on these images, there was a death and police were called, which ended with someone going to jail.”

  “Which is good.”

  “Yes,” Merri Lee agreed. “But something about the person going to jail is going to create danger. And because of the danger, you—because you would see yourself in a mirror—are going to be in a woods for some reason and find a grave.” She frowned at the notes. “What are you going to tell Simon or Henry?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  Merri Lee tapped the word “danger” with her finger.

  “That doesn’t apply until the first set of images happens,” Meg argued. But she looked at Merri Lee and knew her friend
was also thinking about the closed Market Square and Kowalski patrolling the area around the Courtyard’s business district.

  She put the notebook back in the drawer. “If something happens and Vlad or Henry—or anyone else—needs to know, then one of us will tell him.”

  Merri Lee looked like she wanted to argue, but she nodded and said, “I’d better get back. If I happen to hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  Meg nodded. “I’ll do the same.”

  After Merri Lee went back to work, Meg spent the next hour waiting for deliveries, waiting for mail, waiting for something to do to keep from fretting while she waited for whatever was going to happen.

  • • •

  He was done waiting for those shitheads to call and tell him where to meet them for his share of the haul.

  Jimmy sat in A Little Bite, drinking coffee and stewing about the lack of quality help to be found in Lakeside. If he’d still been in Toland and put together a job like this, his crew wouldn’t have tried to jerk him around. After all, he’d put together the deal—and if they believed his cop brother was a little bent and sufficiently under his control that they might have an accident the next time they were in jail, so much the better. But he hadn’t been around Lakeside long enough to have a rep, and CJ wasn’t working much of anything that didn’t involve the freaks, so he wasn’t known to the city’s more enterprising citizens.

  Jimmy sat and stewed, unwilling to go back to the apartment and listen to Sandee bitch and whine, along with the brats whining that there was nothing to do. Shit, Fanny was so bored she wanted to go with Lizzy to that room everyone was pretending was a real school. But if Fanny was allowed to go, then Clarence would want to go because he wouldn’t want to be excluded, and Clarence more than Fanny had been banned from the Courtyard. As if those freaks had any right to ban a real human from anything. But you couldn’t say shit like that, not since the Humans First and Last movement fell.